


old friends not forgotten

by alittlelesssixteencandles



Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Crossover, Cryptic Force Mysteries, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, Keeping my comfort characters alive because I can, Lothal, Post-Traumatic Stress, Redemption, Slow To Update, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Swearing, The Rebellion, the world between worlds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25237246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alittlelesssixteencandles/pseuds/alittlelesssixteencandles
Summary: “Do I look like I care about your master?” Cal counters. He knows he’s testing his luck, and at any moment she could spring on him. As long as he stalls for BD-1 and gives him enough time to translate the runes, Cal will keep testing those limits.“You should,” Trilla replies. Her arms fall limp at her sides and she stops pacing to stand rigid across him. “Because if he gets what he wants,” she presses, taking a step forward. Cal moves backward. “If the Emperor gets what he wants, he will control the entire universe. Every past, every present, every future. There will be no stopping him.”The unadulterated look of pure fear— terror— that washes over her features catches Cal by surprise. He has the half-mind to think it a ruse, if it isn't for the rippling signature in the force around her screaming in protest to the darkness within. It takes Cal a moment to realize that she’s lowered her shields completely, to let the raw, caged emotions run free from her soul.
Relationships: BD-1 & Cal Kestis, Cal Kestis & Ezra Bridger, Cal Kestis & Trilla Suduri, Kanan Jarrus & Cal Kestis, Sabine Wren & Trilla Suduri
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74





	old friends not forgotten

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath— well, it’s not really _that_ steady, seeing as his hands are shaking and it’s all he can do to keep his knees from comically knocking together in nervous anticipation (one might say it’s fear, but Cal would never admit that to himself), Cal stands in front of the same, fateful place where his journey began so many months ago. Bogden seems to be in the same undisturbed, peaceful state as he had left it— aside from the stormtroopers who mill about aimlessly on patrols, who took a considerable effort and a surprising amount of Cal’s energy to scale the sides of the cliff face to avoid, but thankfully the gate to the Zeffo vault is high enough above the soldiers that they haven’t the mind to look up to where Cal has clambered his way through the slippery, cold mud to the vault’s entrance. He gives his shoulders a shake, and BD-1, who sits in his familiar position of clinging to Cal’s back, chirrups a line of reassuring beeps as the Jedi begins to push himself through the tight gap.

Once the two slide in, enraptured again by the Zeffo architecture that hasn’t ceased to baffle Cal— swirling metal, runes, even the dust-covered stone statues that resemble meditating Zeffo-likenesses in various places around the circular concourse. It’s all so similar, yet nothing like the vast temples he and BD-1 had explored. Yet there, in the centre, is where his journey comes to an end, and another starts.

For a brief moment, his mind wanders back to the _Mantis_ , where Cere, Merrin, and Greez lie in wait for his return. Cal hopes he’s made Master Tapal proud— and even after everything he’s been through he still _misses_ him, misses him like he had died only yesterday, like Cal is still thirteen and wide-eyed and _terrified,_ clambering through the maintenance tunnels of the _Albedo Brave_ that he’d learned to call his home, running from the clones he _thought_ were his friends. He still doesn’t understand, and he doubts he ever will, but after all of it— he _hopes_. He hopes that all of this wasn’t for nothing. Running a thumb over the Astrium’s smooth metal, he hears BD-1 whirr in his ear.

“Yeah, buddy,” he whispers in response. “I’m okay. We’re okay now.” He kneels down, tentatively hovering the Astrium over the conduit. It’s pulled out of his grip suddenly, sucked into the conduit’s port like a magnet, and in an instant, a low groan emanates through the vault as the circular building begins rotating, and a clicking noise like clockwork gears notching into place follows the grinding sound. Cal takes a step back, craning his head up to the roof as the sky is blotted out while the dome slowly closes. He reaches for his saber and ignites one end as the vault begins to be enveloped by darkness— the kyber reverberates a soothing thrum.

At last, the structure ceases its movement.

But nothing happens. Other than the fact that it’s now so dark that Cal wouldn’t be able to see his own hands if they slapped him in the face if he didn’t have his lightsaber to cut into the pitch-black.

“BD-1, can you scan?” he mutters, awash in confusion. The droid’s pale blue scanner moves across the room— it takes a few minutes, and it only results in the BD unit letting out a disappointed whistle. “I don’t get it,” Cal says, stumped, unable to manage any other reaction. “Did Master Cordova give you any instructions?”

Another disgruntled beep in return. ( _Cal prides himself in being able to discern BD-1’s wide range of clicks and chirps, which Greez unrelentingly teased him about of course, though Cal only responded with a crude gesture and a coded conversation with his friend— a series of taps and pauses they had come up with, originally to be used if Cal wasn’t in a position to speak on missions, they_ really _only used it to gossip about their companions._ )

“Kriff,” he huffs, letting his free hand rest on his hip. “Okay, well, let’s take a look at these runes. Some of them should have been fully revealed when these panels moved, right?” he inquires, moving forward to inspect the inscriptions lining the walls. BD-1 whirrs as if to say ‘ _good idea_ ’ and jumps from his shoulder, skittering over to the runes. His scanner powers up again as Cal leans toward the wall. He passes his lightsaber to his other hand and runs his exposed palm across the panel’s surface. It's smooth, only marred by the occasional dip of a rune or swirling groove.

Just for fun, if there weren’t any Imperials, and if he had all the time in the world, he’d go back to Zeffo just to marvel at the extraordinary sights of the Sage’s tomb— specifically the towering statues that took his breath away. Aside from the innumerable times he spent trying to figure out the sequence of the spheres, and the embarrassing number of healing stims he went through after repeatedly falling off of various walls and platforms, he’d been the most relaxed he’d ever felt in a long time. It was almost like he was still a padawan— far away from the Empire and the inquisitors. Bogden feels like that, in a way, with the sensation of the Force singing clearly around him. Bogden feels like _home_ , or it could have been at least, but Cal knows he isn’t safe here anymore. Not with the Empire clipping his heels.

With an unsettling thought, he realizes that the stormtroopers would have definitely noticed movement from the vault. Getting out would prove another feat— and if they knew he was here, it wouldn’t be long before they found his crew aboard the _Mantis_. Even further, Trilla could show up at any moment, if she wasn’t already watching him— he whirls around, squinting into the dark. Brushing the panic away, remembering that BD-1 wouldn’t have missed her on his scan if she really was hiding inside the chamber.

“Anything?” he mumbles to BD-1, suddenly longing for the soothing aura of Ilum’s ice caverns. The droid is several meters away from him now, peering upward at another set of runes. He replies with a few reinvigorated beeps, which does well to lift Cal’s spirits. “Okay, that’s a start. Alright, you keep scanning, I’m gonna try and meditate. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance, and here’s a good place to do it, I think,” he says, and drops where he stands to sit cross-legged with his back against the wall. He shuts off his lightsaber and sets it on the ground in front of him. Letting out a quiet snicker, he calls out, “Hope you aren’t scared of the dark, bud.”

BD-1 chitters.

Cal closes his eyes and falls into the Force.

Usually, meditating is different. At times it’s strong, like he’s being suffocated— sometimes with pain, or sadness, and other times with the mundane emotions of the lifeforms surrounding him, as well as depending on the location that he was meditating in. That’s what it was like on Bracca, before he escaped with Cere and Greez. Attempting to calm his wracked nerves on Dathomir, of all places, did not bode well for his anxiety, and he made the mental note never to meditate on a Dark-Side-smothered planet ever again. As for Bracca, he wouldn’t travel within ten parsecs of that place, not for all the credits in the galaxy.

Before, Bogden simply felt like the comforting embrace of the light, like how it was before the Order fell, when the force was alive with so many voices. Now, it’s dull, and suppressed, but if he can find places like Bogden, it reveals a similar essence. Like a patch of blue sky surrounded by storm clouds. He supposes that the force’s energy has been tainted by the Imperial occupation. He’s partially to blame for that, and wonders for a moment if the planet itself blames Cal for their intrusion. He takes a moment to give a heartfelt apology, even though the internal voice of Greez that has permanently plagued him implies that talking to inanimate planets is classified as _weird_ in most cultures. He smiles to himself, and thinks about how Master Tapal would swat his head for straying so far from his meditation and becoming distracted. Cal doesn’t care.

He lays his palms face down on the cool stone floor and focuses on letting the energy of the planet’s core permeate through him as a sense of grounding, and releases his anxieties into the flow of the force. It’s become a daily mantra— albeit somewhat difficult to do onboard the Mantis, yet drawing energy from the world around him calms him unlike anything else. Perhaps because Bogden itself is pure at its heart, just like Ilum and Zeffo, longing for the days where it could be free from the same tyranny that many others in the galaxy are forced upon.

Master Tapal called it the living force. Cal doesn’t know what to think, except that it’s steadfastly calming, and he rather enjoys being in its company. He hopes it doesn’t mind.

An alarmed noise from BD-1 breaks him out of his trance, and his eyes snap open, greeted by nothing but void. He ignites both ends of his lightsaber, and its warm amber beams sears the darkness.

“BD? What is it?”

The droid comes scurrying toward him, consternating a flurry of inarticulate trills that don’t cease until Cal stoops and lets him hop onto his shoulder.

“The runes are moving? What are you talking about? I can’t see anything,” he trails off, voice dropping as he properly understands what the stream of BD-1’s binary means. The runes are _glowing_ , dimly, and barely noticeable until Cal moves nearer, when they gleam brighter and brighter still until the entire chamber is alight in a dazzling white light and the need to use his saber to see is unnecessary. “Did I do that?” he whispers, cocking his head toward the droid.

BD chirps.

“Or was that you?” Cal asks, but he doesn’t get an answer. The runes are definitely moving now, and Cal might be inclined to think it’s just his imagination if BD didn’t begin to chitter rapidly. He takes a few steps toward the centre of the room and squats next to the conduit to inspect the Astrium. “Maybe it just needed to warm up or something. It _was_ up in that tree for a long time,” even as he says it, it sounds stupid to his ears. But BD-1 is just as clueless as he is, so Cal doesn’t linger too long on his embarrassing habit of blurting out unfiltered thoughts. He turns to look at the runes again. “Do you know enough to translate any of them?”

At this, the droid leaps from Cal’s shoulder for a second time and scurries toward a set of the glowing inscriptions, looking between the two expectantly, almost to say ‘ _isn’t it obvious_?’

Attitude in Binary is almost impossible to convey, but BD-1 does a pretty decent job at making Cal feel dumb. Not like his companion tries, _per se_ , even though it really doesn’t take a lot of effort to make Cal sound like an idiot. He pushes away his thoughts for nearly the thousandth time this day and squints at the wall. “These ones look familiar. We’ve seen them before, right?”

BD-1 chirps an affirmation, and takes off in another tangent of beeps, though careful to make them slow enough for Cal to properly translate.

_‘I have seen them. Don’t know, don’t know. How they mean.’_

“Hey, that’s okay, buddy, take your time,” Cal whispers, crouching down on the ground to give his mechanized friend a reassuring knock on his alloy plating.

“I’m not sure I want to wait that long,” a chilling voice croons, whose seething tone raises the hair on Cal’s nape. He spins, coming face to face with none other than Trilla Suduri, pacing a few feet away from him like a predator circling its prey. Her stony expression gleams in the pale glow of Cal’s dual-blade lightsaber. The Second Sister smiles, an unsettling gesture— but she hasn’t bothered to reach for her own weapon. Why she hasn’t killed him yet, Cal doesn’t know, though he doesn’t need to ask for an answer, because Trilla begins to give him one. “I was beginning to think that my presence would go unnoticed, _padawan_ ,” she berates tauntingly. She hasn’t ceased her pacing. “You have much to learn.” Cal doesn’t bite. Trilla takes his silence and continues. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” She whispers hoarsely, like bones rattling against a ribcage. Her very presence— _Cal curses himself for being so stupidly oblivious_ — lets out an eerie feeling clawing at his chest. He’d felt it before, on Dathomir. Merrin didn’t seem to notice, but Cal knows what the dark side feels like. It _smells_ like death, in a way. Acrid— though only for a moment, and then it's gone. Perhaps it's only his imagination. He holds his stance between BD-1 and the inquisitor.

“What do you want?”

“The same thing as you, Kestis,” she hisses. He sees her fingers twitch toward the hilt of her lightsaber, but still, she refrains from activating its sickly red blade.

“How did you hide from me?” He demands. “Why didn’t BD-1 pick you up on his scanner?”

“Why indeed,” she evades, and takes a step backward. Her eyes flash with something unreadable. “Quite a spectacular sight, isn’t it?” She states, gesturing lazily to the circular concourse with one hand. “Nonsense. It drove Cordova _mad_ trying to figure it out.”

“What would you know?” Cal snarks. Trilla’s lip curls in contempt for a fraction of a second.

“More than you, boy.”

“That’s not saying a lot.”

“Don’t tantalize me!” she barks, and Cal flinches despite his efforts to remain composed. The _last_ thing he needs is manipulation. He wonders if there was ever a time in Trilla’s lifetime where she was _normal_ , and even with logic telling him _yes_ , he finds it hard to believe that the woman standing before him is capable of speaking in anything less than an enraged shout.

“I’ll play along, then. What do the runes mean?”

Trilla huffs out a dry laugh. “Nothing.”

“Really?” he retorts snidely.

“Cut it out, padawan.” she hushes.

Cal snaps. “Knight. Actually.”

Trilla glares. “Cordova called it a vault, because that’s what he’s using it for. But _this_ —“ she pauses, raising her gloved hand gesture widely at the dome, “—is a _temple_. The way _inside_ is closed to… me,” she finishes, returning eye contact with Cal.

“You need me to open it. And the Holocron, too. Is that it? Because it doesn’t answer to the dark side?” he returns, to which Trilla nods.

“Precisely.”

“Have fun waiting, then, because that’s never going to happen,” he quips. “I’d die before I do that for you.”

“That can be arranged,” she remarks. Her hands curl into fists. She doesn’t make any move to attack him. “The Holocron isn’t what my master desires, Cal,” she spits. “Surely you must see by now, that if he _really_ wanted those children he would have ordered this temple razed to the ground and the memory crystal plucked from the wreckage.”

“Do I look like I care about your master?” Cal counters. He knows he’s testing his luck, and at any moment she could spring on him. As long as he stalls for BD-1 and gives him enough time to translate the runes, Cal will keep testing those limits.

“You should,” Trilla replies. Her arms fall limp at her sides and she stops pacing to stand rigid across him. “Because if he gets what he wants,” she presses, taking a step forward. Cal moves backward. “ _If the_ Emperor _gets what he wants,_ he will control the entire universe. Every past, every present, every future. _There will be no stopping him_.”

The unadulterated look of pure fear— _terror_ — that washes over her features catches Cal by surprise. He has the half-mind to think it a ruse, if it isn't for the rippling signature in the force around her screaming in protest to the darkness within. It takes Cal a moment to realize that she’s lowered her shields completely, to let the raw, caged emotions run free from her soul.

“I don’t… understand,” he says, quietly. Trilla clenches and unclenches her fingers. A beat of silence passes. Trilla opens and closes her mouth a few times, struggling to form the proper words. Finally, she does.

“In your temple studies, before the purge, were you ever taught about a concept known as the _Vergence_ _Scatter_?”

Cal stares at her blankly, and Trilla takes this as a no.

“It has other names. Some call it the Netherworld of Unbeing. It's part of the Chain Worlds Theorem, written in the sacred Jedi texts.”

“The World Between Worlds,” Cal breathes. “That’s not real. It's just a myth that the temple matrons used to tell us in the Crèche to put us asleep.”

Trilla shakes her head. “It’s _real_ , Cal,” she insists. “If it weren’t, my master wouldn’t have sent me on a wild nerf chase across the galaxy in search of Junda and her… _waifs_ like you. My master is ruthless and doesn’t care whether those under him live or die, but he isn’t _wasteful_.”

“He sounds fun.” Cal snarks.

“He’ll kill you. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us all. If he gets this— the temple, the _gateway_ , everything we’ve ever fought for will be lost. The Jedi, the clones—“ Cal pushes away the stabbing guttural feeling at that mention. “All of it is for nothing. There will be no one left to oppose the Sith.”

“You say that like you’re not a Sith yourself,” Cal says, cautiously.

“I never wanted to be, padawan. Can’t you see that?” Trilla hisses. “ _He_ turned me into _this_. He’ll turn _you_ into _this_.”

Cal chews his lip. His knuckles are white around his lightsaber. “What are you saying?” He reiterates.

“I can’t let that happen. I can’t let him win,” Trilla breathes, hardly above a whisper. “I won’t. I’ll do everything that I can to keep it from happening and that means…” she trails.

All at once, Cal finally realizes what she means, what she’s trying so _desperately_ to convey.

Trilla Suduri has turned.

**Author's Note:**

> let's just all collectively pretend that star wars and the world between worlds isn't in a fixed timeline universe for the sake of this au <3


End file.
